Birthday
by Enigma Echidna
Summary: Born as an outsider, Amy Rose was never wanted from the time she was born. Now she must accept a fate in which she may never have a friend, be loved, or even accepted into society. Is Sonic her only answer to salvation or is he her executioner...


Disclaimer: All of the Sonicverse characters and places inserted into this story are owned by SEGA, and used without permission. All other characters and places mentioned belong to me.

Chapter 1: Solace

Rain drops splashed against her bedroom window as she lay awake in her bed alone. She was forgotten by the outside world, and made invisible by those beings known as mortals. The entire week had been nothing more than freezing rain that were accompanied by high winds that howled both day and night, but that did not matter to the pink hedgehog who had cocooned herself in mounds of blankets. The weather was of no concern to her as it might have been to others, since no one in life had shown her a drop of self-sacrificing kindness.

The room was dark and the shades were drawn as far they could go. Nothing outside concerned her. It had been a full week since she last left her apartment, but there was no reason for her to leave at the moment. Why should she leave? It was not the first time they had forgotten about her. No one ever remembered her on anyone of the special occasions. Not a Christmas card or gift to be seen when the season came, a Valentine or an Easter egg was never given nor was she invited over for a Thanksgiving meal. It was no different for her on her birthday or even when she was ill. No one celebrated it now and no one celebrated it when she was a little girl. It felt as if she never existed at all in life, as if she was never born. The only time anyone ever noticed her was when Eggman held her captive. She was a complete nobody before and then after she was saved. She was invisible to everyone, but at least Eggman knew that she existed, knew that she was alive…a living being. It just seemed that she was only noticed by the population of the world when she was used as bait. She was the perfect bait, the perfect instrument to play on everybody's heart strings when her life was in danger. Nothing more than a tool…a play toy…a rag doll.

No one would blame her for craving attention. No one would have blamed her for wanting to be loved. No one would have blamed her for wanting absolute joy and happiness. No one would blame her for being jealous if another person's birthday was being celebrated. That is if they knew that she never truly had a birthday. No one would have blamed her for being depressed and locking herself away for a few days in her apartment. No one seemed to care or notice that she was not around for long time. If they did, then they would be there right now trying to comfort her. That is what any friend would have done for one another friend, right? But her friends never did that for her. Getting and receiving presents meant nothing to her. All she ever wanted was the feeling and knowing that she was loved, even if it just for one day or a few minutes that would have been more than enough for her. It was something she always secretly yearned for, ever since she was a little girl.  
Everyone in the world knew who Amy Rose was from watching the news or even picking up the newspaper. In everyone's eyes she was the girl that was always saved by Sonic. The girl who always chased him every chance she got, but her constant chasing and declarations of love were nothing more than cries for help. Cries that went onto to death ears. She was just that girl that he saved and nothing more, no one ever referred to her as his friend or even as an acquaintance of his. It was almost as if she did not even deserve enough the right to be given any label. But she was more than that. She was still a living creature starved for true affection and true friendship. She thought she had both at one time, but she had soon come to terms with the fact that she was lying to her self. Friends would never forget about you. Friends were always there when you needed them and they would bend over backwards just to see you smile. If only this was true for Amy. If only she could know that feeling of being somebody's friend.  
Every time she approached her "friends" they would find, from what she assumed, some kind of excuse not to be with her. It was rare for any one of them to hang out with her, even if it was for a few milliseconds. Sometimes she felt they were just doing it out of pity, but Amy was very desperate for such mortal contact as possible that she took whatever contact that she could. Those were probably the only time that she felt truly alive.

She sighed as she stared at her alarm clock. It was late, very late in the afternoon to be exact. Her eyes were red and puffy from a week long marathon of crying. Crying which only resulted into getting migraines, and the migraines lead for her to get sick as well as dizzy. Though these crying side effects no longer bothered her, she had gotten used to it just like she had got use to her loneliness. It was almost two weeks since her birthday, and still like always no one did anything for her on her special day. How disgusting.

Nothing ever changed. It was the same old story from when she was a kid. No one in the orphanage or in even foster care remembered her birthday or any special day with her. Who would ever want to celebrate the birthday of a misfit like her? Who would want to celebrate any special holiday with a freak? She rarely got a gift on Christmas, and if she did it was just by accident and then taken away by one of the other children…never to be given back. They would do anything to hurt her, because she was still a freak and they hated freaks. All the kids were afraid of her and she would not be surprised if her so-called friends were afraid of her if they found out. The kids she grew up with, either in foster care or in the orphanage, we scarred of her special gifts. But they weren't scared enough to torment and torture her into a state of complete despair. They all thought she was spooky, they never even once considered her powers or even her as being cool. Sonic would probably have been treated like an idol if he had the chance to grow there. Probably would have even tortured her as well.  
Amy Rose was primarily and foremost female, an attractive one at that but she never truly saw herself as appealing to any gender. She was then a hedgehog, a pink one hidden in a sea of emptiness and even though her coloring stood out she was still invisible. Third and last she was a freak. The three faces of Amy Rose…the three faces of pain.

Long ago she never thought of her powers as a problem. She had once felt honored to have them. Amy Rose from the time of her birth was a magical being, and like every magical that had ever born she possessed ones that only cause her pain and yet there was the irony. Amy Rose was an empath and all she knew about empaths was what she read from whatever book she could find laying around on any library or bookstore self. Sure she was able to find only a few books on the subject, but sadly each book contradicted each other. It certainly made her confused about herself and her power. What she did know was that they had the ability to telepathically understand the feelings and emotions of others. But from experience, Amy learned that there were some side effects at having this gift. Since she had not mastered her gift completely, sometimes she would act out what a person was feeling, sometimes at the risk of placing herself in a dangerous situation depending on how strong the emotions were. Lucky for her that had not happened yet, but it was one of the things she feared of happening.

Amy let out a deep sigh as she got out of bed and began to slowly peeling off her clothes. She knew that she definitely needed a bath from way she looked and considering it had been over a week decided to walk towards the bathroom for a desperately needed bath. It was clear from the way she smelled that she had not bathed in over a week and she did smell quite horrible. She knew that she would have to return back to work tomorrow, and this so-called vacation she claimed that she was taking was only an excuse to recover from her birthday depression. It was one thing to mask her depression from everyone it was another to give up on all of life's offerings, but when it came to this entire time of the year the feelings that she had been hiding throughout the year came flooding out as if the some had taken a sharp dagger to pop a balloon. These feelings that she had bottled up all this time were not normal, but then again neither was she.

As she turned on the bathtub facets as she watched the water filled up the white fiberglass tub. Amy could not help but think about her other gift as she poured in some special lavender relaxation salts into the tub. It was an ability that most people claimed to have as one would flip through channels or turn a page in newspaper. Amy Rose had the ability to see the future. Like her other power, it was not something that she was glad to have. Most people in the magical community referred to this power as premonition. A special gift, if used correctly and wisely, could help protect the lives of the innocent, and if abused could be used for both greed as well as inflicting pain. But it takes a very strong person to use understand these powers. It was not something that one can control by one's own will. Unlike her ability as an empathy where she could feel the emotions of people around her, but when it came to anything she touched whether it was person or thing, she knew what was going to happen to them or had happened to them. This power tended to make everyone uneasy, even in the magical community. Even though many people wanted to know their own fate, it was just that they did not want to believe that their future could be so violent or chaotic that they would do anything to harm the see. Most likely they believed by killing the seer then the future would never be. Besides many of the books that Amy had come across simply stated that using magical gifts for profit is a complete violation and would fall under the category of personal gain or 3X3, a complete and followed rule by those who practice magic responsibly. In the magical community there are limits to how one can use their powers. The rule of 3X3 is a rule that must be clearly followed to the letter. In its simplest form it means that whatever you send out comes back to you three-fold. This rule prevents the user from hurting anyone or anything. It is basically a form of magical karma.

Amy never once blamed anyone for being scared of her powers, that is if the had ever known about them. She was scarred of them herself since she never knew how violent a premonition of her might be or how violent an emotion someone might be carrying inside of them. That is how she met Sonic and eventually his friends. It was her powers that lead her to him on that fateful day years ago. Never once in her days growing up on the little planet could she have known that he would change her life. Sonic was and still is an enigma to her. In all the time that she was around him, she could never pick up on how he was feeling. The others she did not have a problem with since they almost wore their emotions on themselves. She did want to pry into their private feelings, but for Amy they were just screaming there emotions out as if they wanted to be heard. If only she could help them with their problems, but then they probably think that she was stalking them or something along those lines. If only she could turn off the power or ignore it, but she could not. As far as she knew it, there was no possible way for her to nullify her powers and if there was she would gladly take the chance. From the way they treated her, it just seemed that there was no point in having them. No point of having them if she could not help them.

How she hated bath time as a child. The administrators at the orphanage always made the kids wash in this kind of hot water. Something about getting rid of the dirt and the germs from what she could remember after asking them one day when she was three years old. Amy soon frowned after remembering that moment. She remembered how the caretakers at the orphanage led the children in a game of calling her "dumb and stupid" for even asking that sort of question. It wasn't any different when she was old enough to go to school. Even then there wasn't any escape from her pain.

How they teased her at recess and played pranks on her just to get her to cry by pulling on her long spines and sticking gum as well as throwing things at her while in class and out of class. No one ever protected her or even defended her then, then again who would do those things for a freak of nature like her. That's why she never told Sonic or the others about her gifts, she also believed that by telling them, it would just fall onto death ears. She had made herself eventually believe that if she had told them, then the teasing and the taunting would happen all over again. Amy did not think that her already damaged heart and soul could take another beating like that again, but why did her visions always show her being honestly happy with them? It just confused her even more. If only she was normal.

Amy turned off the facets once the water reached close to the top of the tub. She could not explain it, but some how she felt better after taking a nice hot bath. There was something about it that just revived her and washed away the pain, even if it was only temporary cure for her hidden sadness. Amy slowly placed one of her hands in the tub. She smiled softly noticing how the temperature was just how she liked it…near boiling hot. It was in this kind of bath water that she had her first vision of Sonic as a child. She saw him through one of her visions. She saw how happy he was with his friends and wanted the same thing too. He was so carefree without any problems. He also had power of his very own and was respected as well as loved for having it. How she envied him and it made her jealous just knowing that he was loved by others and that she wasn't even once hugged or told "I love you" or anything nice about her. How she yearned for that feeling, even if it might just happen once in her life it was enough to satisfy her for eternity. She remembered having visions of herself being absolutely happy with Sonic, and for the first time she found herself smiling. That vision was the only thing that gave the strength to go one each day without killing herself, and God only knows how many times she had considered about taking her own life, but she just couldn't bring herself to do it. It just seemed that some kind of mystical force kept her from actually doing it.

Amy was old enough to know when to grow up and to accept that what ever her vision was just nothing more than a shadow of real life. Happily ever after was just a notion created in fairy tales for those willing to believe for the best in life. Her most cherished vision was most likely nothing more than all of them pretending to be nice and kind to her, something that they had always been doing even in front of the media. After all these years she had been clinging onto a false hope and dream of her life getting better, a pathetic child's fantasy that had cost her more pain and anguish than anything she could imagine. If only her birth parents had the chance to kill her the second she was born, then Sonic's life would be even better then if she was alive. If only she never had followed her vision and meet Sonic, then she would be able to kill herself with out a second thought. If only she was never born. If only she could die.


End file.
